by M C Beaton
The party broke up, Deborah and William cheerfully asking Captain Beltravers to come and see the race. ‘And bring poor little Miss Conningham with you,’ called Deborah over her shoulder as she reached the inn door. The captain flushed slightly and said he would certainly see if she wanted to go. Hannah Pym noticed that tell-tale flush and her mind worked busily. Here was a fine upstanding captain and a young girl who obviously did not want to marry her family’s, or perhaps her uncle’s choice. She did not for a moment consider the possibility of a romance between the Earl of Ashton and Lady Deborah Western.
They were poles apart!
3
There is always one who kisses and one who only allows the kiss.
George Bernard Shaw
Miss Abigail Conningham seemed to have put her troubles aside for the day, as a party consisting of herself, her mother, the captain, Hannah and Benjamin set out from the inn on the following morning to travel to Downs Abbey.
The hedges were starred with bird cherry and a pale sun glittered on the incredible green of the new leaves. Benjamin had hired a cabriolet with two sturdy horses and was obviously enjoying acting the part of coachman as they bowled along the leafy lanes where blackbirds and thrushes sang from the high hedges on either side.
Miss Conningham, Hannah noticed, had embellished the shoulders of her plain brown gown with knots of tartan ribbon. Hannah, seated next to Mrs Conningham, decided to enliven the short journey by finding out exactly why the lady and her daughter were travelling to Dover. To her first question, Mrs Conningham replied briefly that they were to visit Abigail’s Uncle Henry, her own brother-in-law, a wealthy merchant.
‘Your daughter does not appear to be looking forward to the visit,’ said Hannah.
‘She will come about when she gets there,’ said Mrs Conningham. ‘Young girls have their heads stuffed full of romantic notions. She must do as she is bid.’
‘That being?’ asked Hannah, whose curiosity was mounting by leaps and bounds.
Mrs Conningham looked at her a trifle impatiently and then said reluctantly in a low voice, ‘Uncle Henry, Mr Bentley, that is, has come most timely to my aid. My husband died two years since and we are in straitened circumstances. He wrote to say he had found a husband for Abigail and sent his miniature. A most worthy man by the name of Josiah Clegg, a widower, a trifle old, in his forties, but just the sort of steady influence a girl like Abigail needs.’
‘Rich?’
‘Very.’
‘Ah.’ Hannah sat back and folded her hands on the silver top of her umbrella. Mystery solved. She glanced at the captain, who was pointing out a ruined tower to Abigail. The normally harsh lines of his face were softer that morning. Definitely early thirties, Hannah decided. Old enough, but not so old as this Mr Clegg.
She returned to the topic. ‘And why does Miss Conningham not favour this Mr Clegg? Does she consider him too old? Or did she take against his miniature?’
‘Both,’ said Abigail’s mother succinctly. ‘She said he looked like a fox.’
‘And does he?’ pursued Hannah. ‘Look like a fox, I mean?’
‘Miss Pym,’ said Mrs Conningham severely, ‘I do not want to spoil this pleasant outing by pulling caps, but I must take leave to tell you that your questions are beginning to border on the impertinent.’
‘I beg your pardon,’ said Hannah earnestly. ‘Let us talk about something else. I confess I am looking forward to this race.’
Mrs Conningham gave an indulgent laugh. ‘Fancy a beautiful lady such as Lady Deborah challenging a gentleman to a horse-race!’Hannah smiled, but thought privately that Mrs Conningham would not be nearly so tolerant if the race were to be ridden by some tavern wench. Obviously Lady Deborah’s rank forgave a lot.
The party arrived at the abbey and were ushered inside and offered spiced ale, ‘to prime them for the great event’, as Lord William put it. Flags had been put up outside the front door of the abbey to mark the finishing line. Hannah was to stand there and decide the winner. The captain and Lord William were to position themselves at the lodge gates to start the race off. Lady Deborah was wearing a man’s riding-dress with a colourful belcher handkerchief knotted around her throat and a low-crowned wide-brimmed hat on her head. Hannah privately thought she made a dashing figure but Mrs Conningham was very shocked. She had expected Lady Deborah to ride side-saddle. Everyone knew, after all, that riding astride could ruin a young miss’s virginity.
The inn party had arrived early, and so they had at least half an hour to await the arrival of the earl. Hannah took a seat next to Captain Beltravers.
‘Why are you travelling to Dover?’ she asked.
‘To rejoin my regiment, ma’am,’ he said.
‘Have you a wife waiting for you?’
His face darkened. ‘Not any longer. She died.’
‘I am so sorry, so very sorry,’ said Hannah. ‘What happened?’
‘I had a good wife, Mary, and a baby boy,’ he said heavily. ‘Mary was overjoyed to get a “to-go” ticket when I was posted to the Low Countries. I was delighted as well. We would be together. Had I known what it would be like, I would never have let my wife and boy come. Often they had to sleep out in the hard frost with me with only a thin blanket to cover us. Once I found she was missing when we were on the march and went back to look for her. She was sitting exhausted by the roadside with the baby in her arms and all the laundry, still wet from the washing, and the household goods on her back. Not long after that, disaster struck. I had got her a donkey and she and the child were fording a river when the donkey slipped and threw them both into the icy water. I plunged in and swam downstream after them, but by the time I got them out, both were dead. I went on soldiering. It is all I know. To be frank, ma’am, these long days I do not care much what I do.’
Hannah pressed his hand sympathetically, tears in her eyes. She forgot about trying to make a match between the captain and Abigail. After such a dreadful loss, the captain would probably never entertain any romantic thoughts toward a female again.
She felt very low in spirits and was relieved when the Earl of Ashton was announced. He was accompanied by Mr Peter Carruthers and a young lady who turned out to be Mr Carruthers’s sister, Clarissa. Clarissa was all giggles and bouncing curls and large brown eyes. Deborah flicked her a glance of contempt and then was mortified to see that her brother, William, appeared to be highly entertained by Clarissa.
Deborah’s spirits were further lowered by the slightly amazed looks Clarissa kept throwing in her direction and by the open contempt with which Mr Carruthers viewed her male attire.
‘You can still change your mind,’ mocked the earl.
Deborah flushed angrily. ‘And so may you, sir. I have no fear. I will beat you fair and square.’
‘We will see,’ he said, his green eyes glinting. Clarissa came up to him and handed him a little lace handkerchief. ‘What is this?’ he asked, looking indulgently down at her.
‘My favour,’ said Clarissa with a trill of laughter. ‘Like the knights of old. You must put it in your hat.’
‘Gladly,’ he said, taking it from her.
‘Yes, you will need all the help you can get,’ commented Deborah waspishly. Clarissa looked at her in round-eyed fright and edged behind the earl for protection, rather like a child going behind its mother’s skirts.
William joined them and held out his arm to Clarissa. ‘Will you do me the honour of coming with me to start the race?’
Clarissa smiled up at him, eyes dancing, curls bobbing, and gave a little skip. ‘I should like that above all things,’ she said.
The earl regarded the couple thoughtfully as they moved off, talking animatedly. He turned back to Deborah. ‘Most suitable,’ he remarked.
‘What is?’ she demanded angrily, although she knew very well what he meant.
‘Why, Miss Carruthers and Lord William, to be sure. I would say they were eminently suited.’
Deborah was outraged to hear her fears put into
words. ‘William and that silly little miss!’ she sputtered. ‘He prefers the company of his sister above all other females, let me tell you.’
‘He cannot fall in love with his sister,’ said the earl acidly, his eyes raking up and down her riding-dress. ‘Nor will any man fall in love with you, Lady Deborah, if you persist in looking like a boy.’
Deborah went quite white with anger. ‘You are trying to put me in a passion so that I may ride badly and lose the race.’
‘Not I,’ said the earl lazily. ‘As a good friend of your father, my remarks were prompted by concern for your future, that is all. Are you ready?’
‘I am ready,’ said Deborah in a thin voice.
Outside, he studied her mare, Harriet, with an appraising eye. ‘Fine beast,’ he said.
‘And she goes like the wind,’ crowed Deborah.
Her eyes fell on the earl’s horse, which a groom was just bringing up, and she felt a pang of unease. It was a coal-black stallion, an Arab, with a small proud head.
They both mounted and cantered easily down the long drive to the lodge gates.
William and Clarissa were already there and so were the captain and Abigail, William having driven them all in an open carriage to the start of the race.
Hannah and Mr Carruthers, surrounded by the abbey servants, took up their position at the finishing line, which was marked by frivolous lilac silk ribbon tied between two flags.
She did so hope Lady Deborah would lose. She was a fine good-hearted girl but needed to be taught a lesson. ‘But why?’ thought Hannah, suddenly and rebelliously. In this age when women were confined by modes and manners as tight as their stays, it was refreshing to meet a young miss who rose free of them all. But that freedom would lead to spinsterhood and a childless existence, and Hannah, who suffered from both these curses, did not want any other female to bear them. In her few darker moments, Hannah often dreamt of the children she would like to have had. She was joined by Mrs Conningham who remarked acridly that she would be glad when this nonsense was over. ‘Is Miss Conningham your only child?’ asked Hannah.
‘I have eight others,’ said Mrs Conningham repressively, ‘and so you see, it is important that Abigail marries well.’
How unromantic this business of marriage was, thought Hannah with a sigh.
Down at the end of the drive, the riders were ready. Deborah’s blue eyes were flashing with excitement. She was so sure of winning that she had lost all nervousness. Had she not outridden every man in the county on the hunting field?
William, with Clarissa beside him, held up a large handkerchief. ‘Ready?’ he called, and both riders nodded. He brought the large handkerchief down with a great sweep. Clarissa squealed with excitement and the earl and Deborah set off like the wind. At first they were neck and neck and then, to Deborah’s horror, with almost contemptuous ease, the earl spurred his horse and began to move ahead of her, almost as if he had been previously holding his great horse in check.
His horse surged forward, black muscles rippling along its flanks.
Hannah watched the earl come thundering up. His horse broke through the lightly tied ribbon, swept round in front of the abbey and then he reined it in and came riding slowly back. Deborah, who, seeing that the race was lost, had slowed her mount, was at the finishing line, her face tight and set.
‘A good race, my lord,’ she called. ‘What a magnificent beast.’
He swung himself lightly down from the saddle and walked over to her and put a hand on her stirrup and looked up at her. ‘I claim my bet,’ he said.
‘A bet!’ cried Mr Carruthers. ‘Have you lost much money, Lady Deborah?’
‘Only a kiss,’ said the earl lightly.
William and his party came driving up, William looking sympathetically at his sister’s set face. ‘If you’re going to claim your bet, Ashton,’ called William to the earl, who had walked a few steps away to talk to Mr Carruthers, ‘I suggest you take Deb into the house. Servants watching, don’t you know.’
Deborah dismounted. The earl came back to her and held out his arm. She took it gingerly and he led her toward the house.
‘Hope she throws everything in the room at his head,’ said William.
The earl stood with Deborah in the hall. He put his hands lightly on her shoulders. ‘Afraid?’ he asked softly.
‘Not I,’ said Deborah, throwing back her head. ‘Get on with it.’
He bent his head to place a fleeting kiss on her mouth. But as soon as his lips touched hers, he felt just as if he had received an electric shock from one of Dr Galvani’s machines. He buried his lips deeper in hers and wrapped his arms tightly about her. His long fingers buried themselves in her shining curls. And Deborah stood unresisting in his arms, unable to do anything other than return his kiss.
He finally raised his head and looked down at her. ‘Well,’ he said shakily. ‘Well …’
Deborah backed slowly away from him, one hand to her mouth, her eyes wide and blank. ‘I must change,’ she said huskily and ran from him up the wide staircase, her spurs jingling. He stood in the hall, shaking his head slowly as though to clear it. Then he remembered the others were waiting tactfully outside and went to tell them the wager had been claimed.
William, who would normally have been worried about his sister, was too taken up with the charms of Miss Carruthers and too depressed at her news that she was returning to London in the morning. ‘Where are you staying?’ asked William.
‘With the Chumleys on the other side of Rochester.’
‘And in London?’
‘With my parents in Green Street.’
William took a deep breath. ‘I shall be going to London shortly,’ he said. ‘May I call on you?’
Clarissa lowered her long eyelashes. ‘Yes, please do,’ she whispered.
William felt almost sick with elation. He led her with the others to the dining-room, where a cold collation had been laid out for the guests.
He sat down next to Clarissa and helped her to food as tenderly as if she were an invalid. He dimly heard Hannah asking where Lady Deborah was and he did not care.
‘Lady Deborah has gone to change,’ said the earl.
Mr Carruthers leaned forward and said to Hannah, ‘I am sure we have met before. Is that possible?’
‘No, I do not think so, sir.’ Hannah looked at him uneasily.
‘Odd, and yet I know I have seen you somewhere before, ma’am. It is those remarkable eyes of yours. Let me think.’
Hannah prayed that Lady Deborah would come in and create a diversion. When Mrs Clarence had been in residence at Thornton Hall, there had been many parties and many guests. If Mr Carruthers had been one of them and remembered her as the housekeeper and said so, she feared all would shrink from her.
The door opened and Lady Deborah came in. She was wearing a pretty gown of lilac jaconet muslin with a gored bodice finished with a tucker of fine embroidery. The gentlemen rose to their feet. Lady Deborah looked around the table rather blindly, but the only vacant seat was next to the earl and he was drawing out the chair for her. She sat down, her back ramrod-straight, and stared straight ahead.
‘I know where I have seen you before,’ cried Mr Carruthers suddenly. The earl noticed that Miss Pym’s strange footman, who was standing behind her chair, put a hand on his mistress’s shoulder and gripped it hard. Hannah’s eyes were quite colourless.
‘It was in Gunter’s,’ cried Mr Carruthers. ‘And you were taking tea with Sir George Clarence.’
‘Yes, Sir George is a friend of mine,’ said Hannah, her eyes golden. The footman, the earl noticed, removed his hand from Hannah’s shoulder and visibly appeared to relax.
The earl turned his attention to Deborah. She looked up at him. How blue her eyes were, he thought, as blue as the summer sea. He was intensely aware of her now, of the rise and fall of her soft bosom, of those excellent slender legs now decorously concealed beneath a skirt, of the springy curl of her golden hair, which framed her face like an au
reole.
‘How do you and your brother pass your days, Lady Deborah?’ he asked.
‘In various sports,’ she answered, ‘and in seeing to the smooth running of the estate.’
‘Do you make calls?’
‘No, only on sick tenants. I despise this business of making calls, chattering inanely among the teacups.’
‘Ah, I had forgot, you despise your own sex.’
‘I do not despise ladies such as Miss Pym, for example, who have wind and bottom, but flirting, empty-headed misses, that is another thing.’ She looked sourly in the direction of Clarissa, who was trilling with laughter at something her brother had said. William appeared enchanted.
‘I am glad to notice that Lord William does not share your views,’ said the earl drily.
‘Everything was all right before you came,’ muttered Deborah, and stabbed a piece of meat viciously with her two-pronged fork.
Hannah, quite light-headed with relief that Mr Carruthers had not found out her guilty secret, began to regale the company with some of her adventures. ‘Tell them about Benjamin,’ urged William, and so Hannah told them about the wicked Lady Carsey and how Benjamin had found employment in her household. He had learned she had a penchant for what she deemed as freaks, although most would deem as unfortunate, and so had pretended to be deaf and dumb, how he had been rescued from the scaffold and of how Lady Carsey had tried to take her revenge by subsequently kidnapping him, a rescue only achieved after Hannah had set Lady Carsey’s house on fire.
‘A dangerous woman,’ said Mr Carruthers. ‘Be careful she does not cross your path again, Miss Pym.’
‘I shall be very careful,’ said Hannah. ‘Up until I met her, I thought there was a spark of good in all of us, but I think Lady Carsey is evil.’
